Hello gang, time to dust off this old thing and get posting again.

We’ve been very quiet, in fact we’ve done very little. But, as has become a bit of a tradition now, we are once again entering the 2 Days Later Short Film Competition. As much as we enjoyed making last year’s short film our original effort is where our hearts lie, and due to the fact there are still stories to tell in this world we are returning to where it all began: Get Dead.

We’ll be talking about it more in the coming weeks but for now we’re putting the word out that WE NEED ZOMBIES. We will most likely be shooting around the end of July or start of August depending on when we get script writing and pre-production finished so there’s no pressure to commit to anything just yet. But if you are interested let us know and we’ll keep you up to date with how things are progressing.

Thanks!

Don’t you know what’s goin’ on out there? This is no Sunday School picnic!

Just a quick post to say we have, bar one or two short external shots, wrapped! It’s been good fun working on a film again and even better having a bit more of a crew to get everything done (Simon Talbot working the sound was a blessing). I started editing last week after the first two nights shooting so for the next few nights I’ll be getting it polished, on top of which we also need to score the film and have it sent away by the start of next week. Busy times!

Maybe one day we’ll make a film to a sensible schedule with no time constraints. I doubt it though.

In other great news Mannin Shorts had their filmmakers’ extravaganza the other week where a video interview consisting of us and other Manx filmmakers was shown. You can see the video below.

Hopefully the next blog post will say “We’ve Finished!” as there’ll be little time for anything else, so see you then.

Last week we did an interview with Christy and Dave at DAM Productions for their latest venture MannIN Shorts (also follow them on Twitter) which, to quote their bio is “a platform for hopeful filmmakers, young or old, to develop skills, ideas and make films, right here on the Isle of Man”. It sounds great and I hope loads of cool things come about because of it.

Needless to say we’re so brilliant at RDF they just had to get an interview with us, so we obliged. It will be shown along with a bunch of interviews with other brilliant local filmy bods at their Grand Isle of Man Film Makers Show-Down on 9th September. Check out their website for more info on that.

As for our own project, well we’re gearing up to get the next film off the ground. With only a month to go before the deadline for submissions for this year’s 2 Days Later competition we’re cutting it finer than last year (I think I was editing by this point - cripes) but we are working on a much smaller scale so hopefully that will work in our favour.

We, pretty much, have all our gear sorted for the shoot, you can see a couple of photos to the left and right. That’s my MacBook. It’s what I’m writing this post on and what I edited Get Dead on too. This will be used (along with Final Cut Pro 5, Cubase 4 and various other tools) to put the final film together.

This is our camera. It’s a Canon XM2 on a swanky Manfrotto tripod. Since we spent all our money on these items there was nothing left to buy anything in the way of lenses, so we’re making do with what we can get for a reasonable sum. Initially we just tried one of those ridiculously cheap and obviously rubbish wide angle lenses you can get off eBay for buttons but their limitations soon became apparent. Visually not bad, my main issue with them was the terrible vignetting that occurred. That and the fact there was a macro lens you had to always have attached, which just didn’t sit right with me.

Now, as can possibly be seen in the photo, we have a bigger and better wide angle lens (this is the extent we’re going to with lenses for now, they’re a whole other money-sapping beast entirely) and since we couldn’t afford the Canon-branded one (WD-58H) we picked up a decent one from Digital King for about £60ish. It’s a 0.7x wide angle for those who are interested. Not enough to really cause obvious vertical line distortion (shame though as I’m a massive Terry Gilliam fan) but enough that we can get a decent amount of stuff in shot and not rely on lots of panning or tracking.

Aside from these main things we also have a nice light reflector to go with the lights we’re hoping to borrow for the shoot, some condenser mics from a drum mic kit we’re using for overheads and some other miscellaneous bits and pieces we’ve managed to lay our grubby mits on.

I hope this has interested you! We’re looking at meeting up next week to discuss the shoot then will immediately begin shooting. Hurrah!

Work is progressing well with the new film (of which we have yet to come up with a good title, we’re working on that) and we now have a script ready for production.

There are a bunch of other things we need to sort out before we can start filming though; some of the less wordy scenes have been storyboarded and we’ll make some photo storyboards for more general scenes - we don’t really have the time to produce full storyboards so a lot of it will be made up on the day. Some of the best ideas come from improvisation!

We also need to get our gear in order. After last year’s competition we went all out and bought a load of cool equipment, initially to make the film ‘Hello, My Name Is Rick’ (which has now been put on hold whilst we make this year’s 2 Days Later entry), and now will be used to make this film. I’ll be posting up a blog entry showing you all our gear in a bit, plus what we’ll be editing on and scoring with. Although we’re pushed for time I’m hoping to get some time to get a nice score down, as Get Dead missed out on that stage of things.

We’re away for the next week or so (on and off) so we’ll post up after that, and hopefully have some news of the filming schedule too.

We have news!  It comes in two flavours I’m afraid; we’ve got some good news and some bad news regarding our entry for the 2 Days Later Film Competition.

The bad news is that unfortunately we won’t be making our planned sequel to 2009’s Get Dead. I know, it’s very sad and we’re aware a lot of you wanted to get involved with it. The reason we aren’t making it for the competition is because our ideas are too grandiose and outlandish to be shot and completed within the time constraints and with a maximum film length imposed. We felt we would do the film a disservice if we tried to cram everything we wanted to do in and didn’t want to pressure everyone with the lack of time available.

For all those folks who were looking forward to getting mucked up and zombified - don’t worry, we have every intention of making this film and hopefully we’ll be able to next year depending on everyone’s availability, etc. We came up with a lot of ideas before postponing it and we don’t want them going to waste. In fact it makes me giddy just thinking about some of the things we came up with.

Okay, onto the good news. As we’re all a bit pushed for time this year anyway (what with our other hobbies like being in bands and having to work full-time jobs, etc) we’re scaling right back for this year’s film. Obviously I don’t want to go into too much detail yet and ruin the story but in the spirit of keeping it vague for now we’re taking the psychological/suspense path (if that’s a path) and have a cracking good idea we think will really work. If I say much more I’ll end up telling you everything, so I won’t, but we’re going for a very different feel with this film and it should be an interesting and creepy story to boot.

I hope you aren’t all too disappointed in our decision, it was a very hard one to make and we’re really hoping to get the sequel to Get Dead made in the near future with better production values and more time and care taken to make it.

We will be blogging here about our filming as and when we commence production with some behind the scenes stuff, the equipment we’ll be using and more info on the story as it develops (not too much though heh).

Stay a while, stay forever!

Friends! It’s been a while but we’re breaking our silence to say that we’re coming back to where it all began. We’re going to enter this year’s 2 Days Later film competition.

We’re keeping quiet about it at the moment (unless you ask us after a few pints of guest ales down the Rovers or something) but I’m hoping to keep the blog going like last year with updates on what we’re doing with some behind-the-scenes video clips, photos and other cool stuff.

Once we start scripting (and the clock is ticking) we’ll tell you more about the project we’re working on. I’ll give you a tasty bit of info though - there’s going to be zombies. LOTS of zombies. We’re going to need a big group of folks to help out this year so if you’re interested in getting involved let us know and tell your friends. We’ll be setting up a Facebook group and all that nearer the time, once we have a date, etc.

It’s going to be fun!

Edit - forgot to add, Get Dead got featured in the 2010 trailer for the competition! Check it out:

Well as was fairly expected we didn’t win anything, but well done to those who did. It sounds like there were a lot of good films shown, hopefully they’ll put some up on their website for us all to see. Here is their press release from the showing (by the way, I know I totally got the day wrong on the last entry):

2 DAYS LATER 2009 SHORT FILM COMPETITION

HALLOWEEN SCREENING & AWARDS @ THE THEATRE ROYAL MARGATE, 31st OCTOBER 2009

The Scots Steal the Show at Kent’s Biggest Short Film Festival!

Over 300 Filmmakers and audiences came from all over the UK and abroad to watch 59 films at the ‘2 Days Later 09 Competition Halloween Screening & Awards Event’ at The Theatre Royal, Margate. The second oldest Georgian theatre in the country is home to a ghost or two of its own and the venue provided a magnificent backdrop to Kent’s biggest and scariest film screening event.

“The filmmakers really got into the ‘spirit’ of the event and experienced a very diverse and innovative programme this year. We had everything from modern day humanoid aliens taking over Sheffield, to a classic 1950’s B-movie werewolf homage, which had them all cowering in the aisles with fright and laughter!”

Mick Etherton, 2 Days Later Co-director

Since July 2009, entrants from across the Europe have been downloading the competition brief from the 2 Days Later website and then taking up the challenge to make a their mini-horror masterpieces in under 48hrs that had to feature three items from a given list as part of their film productions.

From over 900 Internet downloads and 59 film entries to competition, the judging panel eventually decided that David Keith’s film, DEAD FUNNY, was dead good! A chilling tale of a group of campers, stalked by a clown. The Aberdeen-based director scooped BEST SOUND, BEST, EDITOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY, BEST DIRECTOR, & BEST SHORT FILM! Returning home with a car boot full of Horror DVDs and a week’s hire of a professional HD Camera Filming Kit from London sponsor’s VMI High Definition & Broadcast, worth £3000!

“There was a fantastic atmosphere here on tonight and it was great to see so many previous filmmakers return with their new films. 22 of the 59 films were made in Kent and we also had films made for the competition, from Wales, Scotland, and even Switzerland; and they all actually came over to Thanet for the screenings! The imaginatively diverse film styles made it very difficult for the judges to agree on clear winners as the standard was even higher than last year.”

Mick Etherton, 2 Days Later Co-director

The 300-strong audience had other ideas for their favourite film of the evening, as their AUDIENCE BEST POPULAR SHORTLISTED FILM vote went to the cannibalistic comedy, MEAT, by Basingstoke based director, Alex Loeseke. MEAT’s culinary lead role, played by James Burton, also won the Judges’ Award for BEST ACTOR.

From Kent; the BEST SFX Award went to Hythe based director Philip Mearns, for 1950’s B- movie homage-‘VENGENCE OF THE CREATURE FROM BEYOND’..

While previous competition prizewinners Ben Worsfield & William Thomas from Chatham, was nominated in five categories. Canterbury based filmmaker Bruce Parleton’s internet dating film LOL, was nominated for BEST FILM, BEST SCREENPLAY  and BEST ACTOR.

A SPECIAL MENTION Award went to Canterbury filmmakers Rosie Escott & Philip Benedict for the successful innovation in his stereoscopic 3 D horror ‘SHORTCUT’ using only a pair of twin mounted low-fi digital stills cameras!

BEST STUDENT FILM was won by Canterbury Christ Church University student,  Przemek Konieczny for his dreamy experimental horror ‘MOTH’.

Victoria Bailey won BEST ACTRESS for her starring role in the urban horror ‘RIAD’. shot in Sheffield city centre.

Swiss Director Sebastien Cornioley and his filmmaking team’s weekend dash across France was very worthwhile, collecting the audience vote for the BEST POPULAR MATINEE FILM, beating the other 46 matinee screenings.

The awards were presented by film industry judges; Wendy Ide (The Times film critic), Damon Wise (The Guardian film critic) and Screen South’s Co-Head of Production, Development and Training David Castro.

Murderous Marguerites were drunk by all and the fright night ended at 3.00am with an  after-party at The Westcoast Bar, Mansion Street, Margate.

This free filmmaking Event is organised by Beeping Bush, with the aid of UK Film Council’s regional film agency, Screen South funding, and prize sponsorship by VMI High Definition and Broadcast.

THE JUDGING PANEL

Kim Newman, Film Critic & Horror Author

Wendy Ide, Film Critic The Guardian / The Observer

Damon Wise, Film Critic The Times / Sunday Times / Empire Magazine

David Castro, Screen South Co-Head of Production, Development and Training

Mike Shaw, A Writer and journalist, who has contributed to various magazines & newspapers including NME, The Sun, The Independent, and The Telegraph.Film correspondent KM What’s On, Founder/editor-in chief of The Void, entertainments’ website

Barry Basset, Managing Director - VMI High Definition and Broadcast

Steve   Taylor, Operations Manager - VMI High Definition and Broadcast

2Dl09 FILM NOMINATIONS & WINNERS in BOLD

BEST ACTOR
Meat  - James Burton
Dead-Funny - Gavin Park
LOL  - Dave Reed

BEST ACTRESS
Raid – Victoria Bailey
The Lincolnshire Poacher – Rachel Button
Sarah – Nova Woodrow

BEST SFX
Vengence of the Creature from Beyond
Download
Dead-Funny
The Lincolnshire Poacher

BEST SOUND
Dead-Funny
Download
The Lincolnshire Poacher

BEST EDITOR
Dead-Funny
The Lincolnshire Poacher
Vengence of the Creature from Beyond

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Dead-Funny
The Lincolnshire Poacher
Raid

BEST SCREENPLAY
Meat
LOL
Dead-Funny
Sarah

BEST DIRECTOR
Dead-Funny
Raid
Meat

SPECIAL MENTION AWARD
Cock Prosthetics – William Fitzgerald

SPECIAL MENTION AWARD
Steroscopic 3D - Shortcut

BEST GORE AWARD
Open Season
Cock
Dead –Funny
Dia Del Motor
Perfect Man

BEST STUDENT
Moth
Dead Late
MOV1

AUDIENCE BEST POPULAR VOTE MATINEE SCREENING
Holiday Bloodyday

AUDIENCE BEST POPULAR VOTE SHORTLIST SCREENING
Meat

BEST SHORT FILM
Dead-Funny
Meat
LOL

With over 900 requests for the competition brief,

59 film entries were accepted in time for screening. Of which;

32 films were from the Screen South Region,

22 films were produced in Kent

5 films were made in Thanet.